The best way to sustain is to create quality content: Larissa D’sa

Larissa D’sa is a travel and lifestyle creator with a follower base of 1.28 million across YouTube and Instagram. But her journey towards success was borne out of her tryst with challenges: at 19, D’sa had to exit a Pantaloon Fresh face contest as several other contenders, including winner and now actress Disha Patani raced past her. The defeat helped the 29-year old creator to identify her true calling: art; she effectively leveraged her skills at creating a range of personalised products to develop an online store for customised items and eventually went on to post DIY (do-it-yourself) craft videos on YouTube. After she lost her job with a startup in a downsising exercise in 2016, D’sa turned into a full-time creator.

“By then I had already started posting things on YouTube, Instagram. YouTube had suddenly picked up..I was getting paid for doing things online,” says D’sa. D’sa primarily specialises in the travel genre and takes her craft very seriously — she was never into the idea of taking pictures using the mobile camera. “I am particular about the content, its quality..I never took pictures on the phone initially. Now, I still do it,” says D'sa, who believes that the advent of the reels era has somewhat degraded the quality of content being produced. “With the whole reel content coming in, people are so used to quick content, scrolling fast, watching a gist of something and getting bored so quickly, the whole idea of long-form content is gone. There is more of instant gratification now. Watching a long form YouTube video creates more understanding within us,” says D’sa.

The explosion of the digital space has also led to a surge in misinformation as the click-bait nature of short video content has lured many into the segment who often lack sound knowledge about subjects. “There’s a lot of misinformation with travel at this point...the audience has to be smart with whom they follow. I have people following me for 10 years. I have an exclusive sort of audience who are more about experience,” says D’sa.

The new generation of creators is under the impression that the best way to grow is by going viral. “Getting viral is not the way to grow at all. In fact, it shuns down your growth a lot. Slow and steady wins the race, always. Sustaining is the most difficult part of content creation. The best way to sustain is to create quality content which will add value to people,” says D’sa. Besides, it is also imperative to build a community. It is hard but it is the only way forward. “With the whole influencer game, influencers and creators think they need to be very unapproachable but that’s wrong. You need to be connected to your audience,” says D’sa.